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Horrible, just horrible, and shameful indeed. We should have OPEN IMMIGRATION in this country; let people quickly and easily become citizens and let them get jobs and become taxpaying contributing citizens, LIKE THEY WANT.

Horrible, just horrible, and shameful indeed. We should have OPEN IMMIGRATION in this country; let people quickly and easily become citizens and let them get jobs and become taxpaying contributing citizens, LIKE THEY WANT.

What a lot of people don't realize is that, in some cases, undocumented immigrants pay MORE taxes than the average citizen.
For example, a worker using a false SS will typically not file for a refund, money that then goes into the SSA's "suspense file" and gathers interest until it's eventually claimed by the SSA. Combined with state and local taxes, undocumented immigrants pay about $11.8 BILLION in taxes per year.
Even those who earn under-the-table wages pay taxes. Buy something in a store? Sales tax. Purchase gas? Gas tax. Utility taxes, property taxes... These are things you CANNOT dodge. People who insist immigrants pay zero taxes are blathering assholes.

Yup, I know that. And we could get a lot more income taxes if all these people were American citizens! We need more income taxes! We need more real legal American citizens! We have to stop locking our doors and borders and let these people, all people, become citizens! Not just the "chosen" people from "chosen" countries.

Not a math person but I'd think that the low wages/production output offsets income taxes. Am I wrong?

Well, it might in the beginning if they are low income but why are we assuming they'd all remain low income? That's not the case with immigrants from other areas of the world, for sure. If they learn English, if Sanders' plan for free state college goes through (O'Malley also wants free college for immigrants), then I think an upwardly-mobile path and the "American Dream" of a higher income out of poverty can be achieved so that a person can provide for the family, pay taxes, perhaps someday own a home, all of the things every other person in the country wants. That's why people COME TO THIS COUNTRY.

Horrible, just horrible, and shameful indeed. We should have OPEN IMMIGRATION in this country; let people quickly and easily become citizens and let them get jobs and become taxpaying contributing citizens, LIKE THEY WANT. THE IRISH DID

In a decision late Friday roundly rejecting the administration’s arguments for holding the families, Judge Dolly M. Gee of Federal District Court for the Central District of California found that two detention centers in Texas that the administration opened last summer fail to meet minimum legal requirements of the 1997 settlement for facilities housing children.

Judge Gee also found that migrant children had been held in “widespread deplorable conditions” in Border Patrol stations after they were first caught, and she said the authorities had “wholly failed” to provide the “safe and sanitary” conditions required for children even in temporary cells.

Fucking FINALLY! Although I'm sure her ruling is going to be challenged.

CultureStrike, a national pro*migrant arts organization, is releasing illustrations based on letters written by detained women and children at the for*profit detention center in Karnes County, Texas, in collaboration with the advocacy groups ​Mariposas Sin Fronteras ​and End Family Detention​.​ These visual art interpretations created by a diverse line*up of 15 visual artists from across the U.S. will highlight the realities that migrants are experiencing inside of detention facilities, what led them to migrate away from their home countries, and the resiliency of the human spirit.

On Tuesday, Justice Stephen G. Breyer read from his dissent, a rare move for the court and an indication of just how passionately he disagrees with the majority opinion.

"We need only recall the words of the Declaration of Independence," Breyer said, "in particular its insistence that all men and women have 'certain unalienable Rights,' and that among them is the right to 'Liberty.' "

He continued, calling the ruling "legal fiction."

"Whatever the fiction, would the Constitution leave the Government free to starve, beat, or lash those held within our boundaries?" Breyer argued. "If not, then, whatever the fiction, how can the Constitution authorize the Government to imprison arbitrarily those who, whatever we might pretend, are in reality right here in the United States?"

Breyer added, "No one can claim, nor since the time of slavery has anyone to my knowledge successfully claimed, that persons held within the United States are totally without constitutional protection."

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration escalated what had been a war of words over California’s immigration agenda, filing a lawsuit late Tuesday that amounted to a pre-emptive strike against the liberal state’s so-called sanctuary laws.

The Justice Department sued California; Gov. Jerry Brown; and the state’s attorney general, Xavier Becerra, over three state laws passed in recent months, saying they make it impossible for federal immigration officials to do their jobs and deport criminals who were born outside of the United States. The Justice Department called the laws unconstitutional and asked a judge to block them.

Last year, California lawmakers passed three immigration-related laws that feature prominently in the new lawsuit. One bars private employers from voluntarily cooperating with federal immigration officials and requires businesses to notify workers in advance of a federal raid.
A second law restricts state and local law enforcement from voluntarily sharing information with the feds about the release dates of undocumented people in their custody. That law also bars the transfer of undocumented people into federal custody. The third law under federal challenge covers state inspections of detention facilities that hold noncitizens in federal custody.